Like Water Against Rocks
by TallysGreatestFan
Summary: Second part to "Deconstruction of a Perfect Love/Illusion" - Delenn and Lennier have finally undergone the first steps to kitting their complicated relationship, but more difficulties are yet to come. Travelling to Minbar to ask their clans permitting of their relationship, they have to realize that on a deeper level, rifts show that concern Minbars society as a whole.
1. Chapter 1

_**The Rituals That Bind Lovers Together**_

I needed almost a week to just start with the rituals.

Everything changed stepwise, flowingly. It hardly seemed to me as if anything between me and Lennier would have changed. He still was my closest friend and we talked or sat beside each other in the embassy and rested if the short time between conferences and the screenings of his records about the attacking Centauri ships allowed it. Only that now there wasn't this subtle unease how I should behave or why he avoided me. And I sat so close beside him that our thighs touched and laid an arm around him. And Lennier did not pull away. Sometimes he even dared to snuggle up to me. It was still the same deep friendship – and also the same fear of our bond – only that I kissed him, and after a short hesitation, as if it would surprise him again every time, he would return it with passionate devotion. He learned fastly, so that very soon it wasn't the clumsy fumbling around of the first kiss, but so intense that for a moment I forgot everything around us. It felt so right. And for the rest of the day the dull hopelessness was finally washed out of his face.

Until the next morning came and he just looked at me imbued with this quiet suffering that one only perceived if one knew where to search after it. He didn't seem to believe the change between us.

Only as we sat together at the evening before his departure back to the Anla'Shok – actually I still had to work through several reports, yet in my exhaustion working further wouldn't make any sense anyway – I dared to ask. We talked about meaningless things and my exhaustion had already half vanished and suddenly it only seemed the natural course of events to ask him the question now.

,,Do you follow me into the rituals of bonding, on that they lead or souls together permanently?"

How absurdly small this was in face of his vow to never leave me even in times of war and despair. The vow he, despite finally having fled back to Minbar, had never truly broken.

Under my hand on his chest I felt his heart race.

,,Yes. Together with you I will undergo the rituals that bind lovers together.", he replied the ritualistic answer on my question and his voice sounded solemnly and very serious, as if this would be an much bigger step for him. Finally the desperation seemed to fall off of him, and he gave me an beaming smile that was definitely cute.

For the rest of the evening we sat beside each other silently, felt the warmth of the other and watched the candles. All the political problems lurked in the background and of course we were aware that they could only become even worse in near future, and that on my home planet several problems lurked that we would have to solve too, first of all to vindicate us in front of our clans. Yet at least we had resolved what had been between us. And had this little shared peace.

,,Do you accompany me this night?", I eventually asked smiling as I rose.

Even though contradictory to John he knew that I meant Vit'wa Fal, the sleep watching ritual, and not sex with this, his cheeks flushed.

,,Of course.", he stammered.

I waited for him in front of my bed room. As he approached me finally he wore a white, wide gown that played around his slender, wiry torso, his hips and his thighs. He looked so ethereal in it. I had seen this night gown countless times when we had breakfast together and underwent the morning rituals, but only now I truly saw it.

The V-neck exposed a small part of collar bone and the fabric wasn't thin enough to truly show something, but the pale white of his skin and the light blue patters still shone through oh so lightly. I was sure that Lennier would have wore something else instantly if he would become aware of this characteristic of the fabric. The cloth ended shortly under his knees. I was still used so much at human bodies that I was almost surprised to not see their woolly leg hair, only his slender calf and wiry sura. Amazing how revealing this little bit bare skin seemed to me suddenly.

His eyes flickered to me black night gown, to my naked arms, collar bone and the deep cleavage and flinched away at once.

The whole situation felt irreal, to harmonic for me to have deserved it.

He regarded the whole room intently as he followed me in my bedroom. Had he truly been here so rarely?

,,Come.", I laid down and pointed beside me. He hesitated for a moment, but rested beside me then. Only as I embraced him he dared to snuggle up to me. I did not arouse me yet, for that this kind of closeness was still to unfamiliar, yet it felt decidedly good nevertheless. Secure and peaceful, despite he knew what I had done and what I truly was. But that seemed far away in this moment.

I had laid my arms around him and stroke his back, and my legs were entagled with his, so that we laid body against body, felt our warmth through the fabric. His right arm laid under my head, the other rested over my flank.

,,This is beautiful.", even in the darkness I saw him smiling.

,,Yes, it is."

It took long until he was asleep. We only laid there and he huddled against me. As I carefully stood up I feared to wake him.

He looked so peaceful. All the pain I had beheld in his face far to often, and the hard, withdrawn manner as Anla'Shok were disappeared. He smiled oh so lightly.

I noticed that this wasn't the first, but in truth already the third time I watched him in sleep. I had done it as he rested still wounded after the bombing attack, and later then as he had sacrificed himself for the whole crew of the ship and I believed that I would have to die already at the next day. Hadn't he not watched three times, far more than three times, over my sleeping self and had seen my true face?

The most time he only looked peaceful, yet some when late at night he rolled from one side to another and curled up to a small ball, and the pain was to see even on his sleeping face. Only as I stroke over his shoulder calmingly he relaxed again.

Despite this was already the third night, I still wasn't completely sure if his sleeping face just looked exactly like his awake one, as if he would mask nothing, or contradictory seemed deep from hidden truths. Or maybe both was true, because truths could exist beside each other after all.

As he awoke for a moment his eyes flinched trough the room hopeless and searching.

,,Hsch. I am still here.", I was so tired that I had only noticed that he had awoken after the rustling of the blanket. But now I sat down beside him and stroke over his forehead.

,,However I have a meeting with G'Kar now, and in face of what is looming right now he surly would react decidedly unpleasant if I would stay with you instead."

Lenniers smile got something mischievous: ,,I am sure you manage to deal with him. At least if you lend an Denn'Bok from one of the Anla'Shok."

,,Oh, I do not doubt that.", I meant smiling, ,,However I would have to handle his dozen devotees then."

,,G'Kar would be most gratefull of all people if you drive them away."

I laughed, but in my laughing fit a few unpleasant thoughts crept into my consciousness the conversation about G'Kars devotees had brought me about. Right after the morning rituals I would have to inquire after the situation on Minbar and in the population I had left out of my sight in face of the Centauri-catastrophe.

For a while we continued to simply lie there, in a bubble of shared peace.

,,I love you.", Lennier said tenderly. I breathed in deeply, and knew that I had to reply something. Warmth and fear at the same time floated through me. Yet only at the thought of replying ,,I love you too" something inside me cramped and panic raced through my heart. It seemed far to easy for all this thrilled, in parts out rightly menacing things I felt. It did not feel as if it could be true, and at the same time it did. And that scared me. To say this was so final. So I said nothing but only smiled and caressed his chin.

Astonishing how many of the rituals, that should connect and finally join us, we had undergone unknowingly. We had breakfasted together. Told us from our past, our favorite books, our believes. Prayed together, so often already. I even remembered that we had given each other the traditional cleansing. He to me as after the transformation I was still to weak to do it myself, and I to him as he left sickbay with an severe concussion and his back full of stitched up threads and bandages.

Even despite the political crisis we underwent the rituals surprisingly fast.

What I felt for him was not the superficial, everything covering passion. It was deeper and almost subtle. I would have paraphrased it with deep friendship without any doubts wouldn't have the physical component come to it.

My perception of him too changed in small steps. First I perceived what a cute smile he actually had. And then how slender and gracil but still strong his hands were. Somewhen my perception shifted so that I didn't saw his face as strangely stuck between rounded of and sharp, but instead his rounded of cheek bones, his narrow chin seemed just right. More and more often he didn't seemed to short and sleight, but wonderfully petite.

When we saw us again in his training breaks I suddenly discovered details at him as if I wouldn't knew him since five years already. These large eyes that in certain light seemed as if they would be light brown despite in truth they were blue. What a gorgeous pattern the blue speckles on his crown created. His bone crest was more sharply cut than back then as Lennier arrived by me, but still softly swept and rounded.

How could I have seen him all those years every day and still didn't perceive how beautiful he truly was?


	2. Chapter 2

**What a Shame We All Became**

"The war damages have to be mended, especially before onset of winter on the northern hemisphere. Not to mention the coping response we have to provide in our communities. The first war between Minbari since thousand years. Since not even one cycle it is over." Without my insane decision to annul the Grey Council it would have never come to that, would this healing not be necessary in the first place. Sure, back then we had to act swiftly against the Shadows, yet there should have been another way. How megalomaniac of me to believe I could simply overthrow my own government just because it refused what I planned.

"And at the same time we have to adapt to the opening of our world. That is incredibly much at the same time, and should have priority. Only after this we can deal with the reassignment of our foreign politic.", Satai Katz, former quantum physicist, added for consideration,. I admired the always pragmatic way her thinking worked, ever causal and one detail after the other, without leaps. Now anyway it impeded me at reaching my goals. I stood in the circle of the Grey Council, and had brought forth my question after new ships of the White Star Class. After some explanations of the priority of the case they had been approved, yet had started an far reaching discussion about our duties beyond our territory and inside the Interstellar Alliance.

Scratches adorned my face, remnants of the Drakh-assault against the White Star in which Lennier and I had wanted to travel to Minbar. My gracefull appearance did probably suffer from that, yet I tried to not let show anything. How we had already made peace with dying. Had simply sat together and waited. I had been so relieved that I at least had resolved the issues between us. And then the strange euphoria and yet vulnerability that overcomes one if one actually does survive and only almost died.

I thought at Londo. How strangely deep his fate affected me. We had never truly been friends, yes, most time I had actually perceived him as both politically and civil bothering, yet in a certain way his fate was so similar to mine. A single wrong decision, and two worlds had been thrown into war. And his soul was lost, even as he tried to make up what just couldn't been made up for. Now he had got what he deserved, opposite to me. He had advocated so much for the alliance, had even become close friends with G'Kar – and now this hundred eighteenth degree turn. Vaguely I was aware that there was something odd going on, but the alliance was still too fragile to deal with it. It would have been to risky. And so I couldn't do anything beside leave him with his fate. I pushed the thought away.

"To undergo these other changes has no urgency, only the enlargement of the fleet. I thank you for your approval.", I bowed slightly, then I left the circle of the Grey Council.

Lennier waited before the hall, the splinted leg stretched out in front of him. As he saw me, he smiled and stood up clumsily.

"The good thing about this is that I can't report for duty with a broken leg. I am free for the next weeks."

What we would use to visit our clans. There would have been more pleasant ways to spent ones vacation.

As we reached the Tenth Fane of Eleya, Callenn already waited for us, surrounded by priests and priestesses just like the last time.

"Delenn of Mir.", he said with dismissive and at the same time grossly patronizing voice.

"Callenn.", I responded and bowed, and hid pretermid my anger about the clan right hindering me from implementing harder measures in contact with him.

Lennier stood beside me and looked around slightly unsettled.

"You are here because of your… bond", now slight tentativeness flashed up in his voice.

"Yes."

"With a Minbari."

Lennier stared at the floor, teetered back and forth on his tiptoes once and fiddled around at his own fingers. But then he raised his eyes and did not let up on Callenn for a single moment, and was the confident Anla'Shok once again.

"Yes."

The corner of Callenns mouth twitched, his gaze flinched to his entourage shortly. I recognized distinctly how he only fully realized now what he had started with his remark the dreaming could show me truths I wasn't even aware of myself back then. He seemed to regret it. I could see distinctly how he searched for words to prevent what he had wrought himself.

How strange that I of all people now caused dissonance. I, who had already know her whole life that she was capable of loving non-Minbari, and who had lied to herself about that half of it. I had been aware of what controversies such an relationship would cause, but that I would ever be the alien myself…

"I know that you only explored scrupulously what the dreaming showed you and now follow the voice of your heart.", spoke Callenn with his grossly patronizing voice, "yet trough your transformation this is once again so much more than just a private love."

How could he believe I hadn't been aware of this before his lecture already?

Well, I had only realized it recently and I had rather suspected that the markedly conservative Third Fane of Chu'Domo would have had concerns because of that, not my own clan, but still.

"As I started a relationship with an human, my clan sent me into the dreaming because this was such an unusual wish.", I started my defense, "please note too because they saw me as a Minbari, as the first who officially started a relationship with an alien. But now I count as the alien myself from one moment to the other?"

Callens face twitched. He made an calming movement with his hand, yet I ignored him.

"How could my status change that much? Back then, I had undergone the transformation already, after that there would have been an justification for a change, but not suddenly now! There is no foundation existing for that. Either my clan sees me as a Minbari or as an alien, but not either the one or the other according to how it fits into its plans. If I was regared as a Minbari back then, I still do now, and according to this this here only deals with a relationship between two Minbari. Lennier never did anything dishonorable, in all those years served our people more faithful than most people. I do not understand how you can still have any doubts under this circumstances!"

Callenn seemed to realize that he had lost, yet he seemed as if he would want to speak against it one last time.

No matter how Callenn decided, he didn't had the power to hinder me at anything. I was minister of defense and vice president of the Interstellar Alliance and unofficial leader of the Minbari, I stood above him. But I would only confront him with this if he didn't let me any other choice.

Callen breathed in deeply, then he announced: ,,Your clan allows you your relationship to Lennier of the Third Fane of Chu'Domo."

Lennier relaxed as if he would have truly believed I would simply give up at an decision against us. We bowed before Callenn and left the room. I wished, yet did not believe it for a blink of the eye, our audience at Lenniers own clan would respect us just as easily.


	3. Chapter 3

**The Clan in the Mountains**

I still had some things to resolve concerning the future central office of the Interstellar Alliance and what Londos change of mind had caused politically, so we could only continue travelling to the Third Fane of Chu'Domo three days after that. Lennier used this time to visit his family, and I too met with Lennan and some other old friends I had not seen for far to long. Frightening, how unfamiliar I had become to my Minbari part.

I had tried to arrange a meeting with Mayan, too, yet she never answered on my messages. She still seemed to be unable to forgive me what I had done to our world, and how much I had changed, and the latter referred the least to my transformation. I could understand that.

I wished I could have talked with her about Lennier and all the truths about myself I had become aware of.

I landed my shuttle on a rock plateau on which's back half flat buildings cowered into the rock. Other than in Tuzanor one could not see the war in them the slightest bit; there were no collapsed ceilings, no scattered houses one build up again already, no bomb holes. Coldness embraced me as I exited – not the dank, everything permeating coldness of my home city but a dry one that laid on my cheeks and almost felt comfortable. Something ripped at my hair and I needed a moment to realize that it was actually strong wind. How strange weather felt like if one had lived almost exclusively on a space station for years. How small and vulnerable one in truth was if one was only oneself without shielding walls or steel and machinery around one.

Lennier limped over the landing field towards me, beside him an older woman who I hoped wasn't his clan chief. Would she prevail over us now already?

But he introduced the woman as his aunt. Except for the just as unordinary shape of nose, pointed and rounded off at the same time, she looked, with her round face and her heavy build, not at all like him. She smiled proudly, as I introduced myself to her, then she bowed and disappeared discreetly into one of the buildings.

I was relieved about being accompanied. Even if I tried to not let it show under no circumstances, under the irritated to hostile stare of the monks and nuns we meet I did not felt welcome. I was an foreign object again, an alien. Suddenly it seemed to me as if this feeling would have never stopped since my transformation, even before it.

I tried to ignore the feeling just like the political disavowal, but it seemed as if the harsh wind would have blown away my protection measures as well.

As we walked past a group at the inner yard I even suddenly felt how somebody just grabbed my hair and groped my head, yet as my shock was over enough to turn around, the priests were moved on whispering. Every word and every reaction how I could respond on that was obliterated, I didn't know how I should behave.

"Hey!", Lennier shouted, suddenly not the shy boy anymore as whom he had come to me but the confident Anla'Shok, "How can you dare to treat our greatest leader since Valen like this?"

Some of the group turned and in their whispering to each other I heard the words ,,traitor of our people" and "human fucker" and "I just wanted to know how this stuff feels like!", then they rushed away.

I stood there and would have liked so much to lead these people to their reightful penance, yet I wasn't able to do anything, and I hated myself for this weakness. I comforted myself with the fact that arguments would be lost on such dumbness anyway, but the thought didn't really came trough to me.

"I am sorry.", Lennier mumbled ashamed, as we finally reached the cloister cubicle to which we seemed to had been heading.

"You are not responsible for your clan."

The small room only harbored a bed directly beside the door, a desk and an wardrobe. Through the window I looked down to an inner yard with tree and the mountain chain behind the walls of the abbey. I tried to imagine how Lennier had grown up in rooms like this, had never really left the monastery until he came to me. How strange that I knew him so deeply but had never visited the place at which he had spent his entire life before me. And suddenly I wondered how much of the Lennier who had lived here was still left.

He limped to the heating and lowered himself laboriously in front of it – with his splinted leg and the crooks it was an complicated process. Only after that he put down his coat. He wore the slivern-light brown robe I had not seen for far to long.

"In the winter I used to sit in front of the heating and read."

I hung my coat on the shelf and sat down beside him.

"It was the best thing to warm one up after the cold, and it felt so secure."

"Did you have many books?", I cuddled against his flank carefully.

"The whole back wall full. The others did something with their friends, explored the cliffs in groups – what I did too from time to time but far to rarely – but I either trained Tha'Domo or read. I always had some historical novel or a topic I could research and devour everything could just find on the internet."

He laid his head on my shoulder, leaned his upper body against mine then and let himself sink a bit to forwards, so that he half leaned against me, half sat beside me. He was warm and firm. His head rested over my chest and I changed my position myself a bit to make it more comfortable for him. He closed his eyes.

I tried to imagine how he had lived here as a teenager. A small, to short for his age boy with shy, polite smile who sat indulgent in front of his heating and read.

I thought at myself, at my lonely and yet strangely fulfilling days at the library back then, so long ago.

,,As I was still an teenager my days looked like this too. I actually had some friends, even became more or less leader of my clique of outsiders, but only much later in my youth. At the beginning I was always alone. Well, I sat mostly in the library, not only in my own room. One of the librarians despribed me to visitors always as 'Delenn, she's actually already part of the inventory'."

He laughed softly. I stroke over his arm and back, and he snuggled up even closer to me. The shock from the assault of me had fallen off almost.

I knew no matter how the judgment of his clan would look like I would not submit to it and find another way, yet as soon as even a tiny part of it would bring shame over his clan, Lennier wouldn't participate in that. So deeply he loved me, he would never do anything that would harm his clan, harm the community. So much Minbari, and for that I… _liked_ him so much.

But this menace was only present in the background and didn't mattered in this moment.

I realized that his bone crest was very close to my face and touched it fascinated. Only now I realized how long the last time I had touched the head of one of my species was ago. I let my fingers slide over the small curves and tips on its upper end, firm and rough and warm. Then I followed the delicate grooves that ran in swungs down, more filigree than my own as I had still been fully Minbari, and finally laid my whole hand on the bone.

"What are you doing there?", Lennier asked.

Opposite to a human and their hair he didn't actually feel when I touched his head only lightly, I realized. Ashamed to have forgotten even such an fundamental detail about the species I had been born as I grabbed it harder and pressed my fingers against the bone.

"Do you feel it now?"

"A little bit."

I continued, debauched in the sensation, and eventually began to trace the blue sprinkles on the top of his head, where bone passed over to skin. He moved his head in direction of my hands, to be closer to the touch. I caressed over the passing between bone and skin on his temple and this time he leaned his head back oh so lightly, lips parted ajar, eyes closed. His breathing became harder.

And in this moment, something awakened inside me I hadn't felt for him until this moment. Desire. An light throbbing in my loins.

"I… I am sorry.", he said suddenly. My hand flinched back.

"Did I do something wrong. What did happen?"

He squirmed a little bit and I wasn't sure if it was cuddling closer to me or embarrassed.

"Only for how I reacted on you. That… how much I longed for you to continue this touch."

I smiled. So innocent. Strangely, I only coveted him trough this realization even more.

"It does not make me uncomfortable, if you feared that. Quite the opposite. Shall I continue?"

"If… if that is okay.", he managed to say.

I laid my fingers back on the rim of his crest, and eventually let them slide down to his neck.

"And this?", I asked teasingly.

"This… feels very good.", his voice sounded a tiny bit flatter, more brokenly than usually.

He stroke over the inside of my thigh, near my hip, and I felt the movement of his slender fingers trough the fabric. I was sure that he had only meant this as an innocent, small touch, yet it sent a shudder of arousal trough my body. Did he knew what he caused in me?

What a pity that we couldn't undergo the Shan'Fal here, in his old monestary, in a specifically consecrated room. I would not really have wanted it already now. Not really, that would have been to early, but I liked the imagination. Anyway we were not far enough in the rituals, even if this would matter lesser than I would have ever admitted to my human lover, as long as if took place out of the rituals then. However I doubted that Lenniers clan would see that just as liberal. And it with his broken leg it would have been anyhow very painful for him – even if I was sure that he would have undertaken the pain on him without hesitating.

I noticed that I had problems to remember how the sex of one of my species even looked like, so much I had only paid attention to the humans. And it was difficult to imagine the quiet, reserved Lennier in ecstasy. But I didn't doubt how passionate he would be, as soon as he had become accused to physical love, all the desire of five years of unrequited love. Passionate in his quiet, devoted way…

He moved in my arms and opened his eyes, and suddenly I felt shame at the sight of my fantasies, despite having experienced this with other persons in reality already.

And he looked right in my eyes and kissed me, more desiring than I had ever felt from him before, pressed his lips hard against mine and his tongue into my mouth and against mine. I returned it and pushed my hands against the warm, smooth skin of his neck.


	4. Chapter 4

**The Abbess**

We stood at the small abbey and waited.

As Bek, abbess of the Third Fane of Chu'Domo entered the room, the whispering and the occasional accusation weather the civil war I had caused and to Lennier, who they insulted as clan traitor, Lennier of all people, died away instantly.

I had questioned him about her yesterday, yet he hardly knew her and had only seen her a few times at mass from some distance. She seemed always grumpy and would be very cynical, but not exactly vicious, he had reported. And she had taken over clan leadership after the Ashan incident. In my time as Satai I have had contact with many clan chiefs, but this explained why her name didn't rung the bell the least for me.

,,Entil'Zha Delenn ra'Mir. Lennier.", her deep, rasping voice cut through the silence. I had imagined an matronly, old matriarch. Instead a tiny, very thin woman, roughly as old as I, paced trough the crowd. Yet in face of the implicitness with which she expected that her clan cleared space for her and that rang in her voice, I hardly noticed the first thing.

She stopped, leather-brown eyes a human would have called east-asian estimated first me and then Lennier assessing, not a single expression showed in her sharp face.

An mantle ornamented with scenes and objects that probably had high meaning for the clan but that I couldn't decipher swung around her slight body. She wore metal, symbol-ornamented vembraces and the sharp tips of her bone crest were shod with metal, relicts from the days as fights had still been hold woman against woman.

Yet even despite these materialistic symbols of her power she didn't seemed like I had imagined it for the leader of the most conservative of the religious clans. She rather reminded me at G'Kars former attaché Na'Toth.

"So. We'd came together here because of connection closing of one of ours with a clan foreigner. Usually I would trust the calling of their heart and my own knowledge of them there. Out of reasons I suppose I don't need to exaggerate here", her voice sounded almost mockingly, "this case takes shape a bit more difficult."

She approached us: "Lennier, I'll sent you into the dreaming now, to lay open probable hidden reasons. That'll make the decision easier."

He bowed very lightly, and then he did something the shy, naïve monk from five years in the past would have never done: "To sent me into the dreaming is not necessary anymore. For a very long time I regarded my deep love for inappropriate, knew that I wasn't worthy of her, and tried to persuade myself that it was deeper and more holy", his voice broke a bit, "than it was in truth. Yet I suffered to many years in pain in which I condemned myself to not know my reasons."

"It is the calling of his heart. What can you achieve against that?"

"We can find out if this is truly is a matter from the calling of his heart.", Bek simply replied, "Lennier, go into the dreaming."

And this time he obeyed. With nervous eyes that fluttered back to me again and again he trotted towards the back wall of the room that looked almost exactly like the one of my own clan, as different as the rest of the architecture actually was.

I knew at least that I couldn't achieve anything against that. It was important and rightful, as much as everything in me struggled against it.

Dull fear shot trough me. I thought at my own dreaming, back then, and how the doubt awoken trough it only had lead to this here. I knew how deep and unconditional his love to me was, had known it even as I had tried to tell myself he wouldn't love me. Yet did it was in maybe only a lie, and he did in truth have whole other reasons? The thought scared me as much as his love once had.

"Does anybody here volunteer as his companion?"

How much would I have accompanied him, as he had done with me back then, but the dreaming actually was about us. Finally his aunt broke away out of the last row and stood beside him.

"Go.", Bek ordered the rest of the clan. As I stayed, and looked after Lennier, she meant: "You too." And so I went.

I visited Beks bureau and tried not to think about that Lennier probably saw the true reasons behind his fidelity to me. I had known from the beginning that he could impossibly love me, my true self.

The door whirred open and I entered. Bek stood lurking in a corner of the room and reminded me with her dark poncho, that hang down her arms like wings, at one of these bloodsucking, transforming to bats mythical earth creatures called vampire.

I bowed before her. She returned it, yet starred at me so grumpily the whole time that it rather seemed like a mocking of my gesture.

"I trust your wisedom in our case, in which you even already noticed that our relationship is a matter between my partner and me that is actually to private and not thing of the public.", I tried to persuade her of something I knew that it did not apply myself.

"Hm.", she only growled, "Just as private as your nice little tryst with this human captain you puffed up media-effective to an incredibly romantic, corny love against all odds and against the former hostility between humans and Minbari.

I ignored her impudence deliberatly. But I didn't liked how she had instantly noticed my political intention in this manner that had been concealed even from said "human captain".

"It is the calling of his heart. Lennier bears no political goals with it, and concerning me this is a truth of my soul I denied for far to long. Why should I have entered a relationship with him where I actually could have that 'nice little tryst with the human captain' that would have been immensely better fitting as a political symbol like you described yourself.

Do I have to remind you that the Satai are known for nobody out of their own caste, because their private life isn't important, just as unimportant as my, but that only their actual political acts count?"

"Says the woman who literally made her own body to a symbol of international understanding.", she grabbed my hair and let a strand slide trough her fingers, "Because of that, Delenn, your mere existence is political. And you know that better than I.

I personally don't give a damn if you now choose Lennier or whoever. And if this wouldn't be so private as you claim it wouldn't have to interest the rest of the Minbari in the slightest way. You know as good as I that this is not the case."

I did not make any more sense trying to persuade her that my relationship harbored no political meaning in it. She wasn't foolish enough to believe that.

"The mayority of our people regard me as their leader. They regard me as Minbari. Now after the Vorlons are away and after the civil war our society has to change no matter of single clans want it or not. And this tiny step towards that could be an model for the rest of your clan. In the last years, Lennier probably brought most honor over the clan, even ostracized by you. Don't deny this further, it only brings you shame. You can't stop the change."

"Don't even want to. But my clan. If I had my way I would permit it, but I only serve my clan. Tja, and they actually regard you as an pervert abnormity."

It still hurt to hear that. A brutal kick into my soul. Even four years after my transformation still.

"Did you ever consider how much the civil war disturbed people like us? People who thought the whole time that they were more wise and peaceful than the other species?"

Of course I had. After the war not a single day had passed at which I hadn't thought at that. Not a day at which the pictures of my destroyed home city hadn't haunted me, the dead, the awareness how barbaric and brutal we truly were underneath the thin mantle of honor. And I had actually experienced the war from afar. How must it only then be for someone who had been here the whole time?

"They couldn't handle to evaluate a woman who they can distinguish with a single gaze as half alien as a Minbari. Not that shortly after the civil war."

"The same woman they selected in the very same civil war for the rescue of their caste and from whom they allowed to end the war.", I added.

Bek starred so penetratingly grumpy at me that it intimidated even me. She did not reply anything, but just continued her staring. I decided to change the topic.

"How did the war went for your clan?", I do had informed myself about the situation for the Third Fane of Chu'Domo, because Lennier had implored me panickedly to find out how his clan was, yet this had been rather tactical information than a true description.

"Caught us off guard. Not because nobody noticed anything about it. Contradictory, our elders did promote the conflict with Warrior Caste the most. But Minbari do not kill other Minbari. Nobody believed it could truly be war. It was said there wouldn't be anything happening, even as it became more and more difficult to provide needed goods. Then suddenly it was said Warrior caste stood before Avudor. And then half a dozen fast movers shot over the monastery away."

I breathed in deeply and tried to let my expression stay sympathic but unreadable. I had always been glad to have experienced the war almost exclusively on a political stage and in space. Yet at the same time I felt guilty for that. I had only brought my people in this position. I should have been the one who suffered from that.

"They didn't attacked us.", Bek meant as she saw me expression, "We're only ten thousand people here, we're not important enough for that. But they assaulted the cities in the valleys. Cut us off entirely, by air and by land.

As they realized that the war awfully well existed a majority of the young men and women of the clan volunteered to defend their caste.", her voice and expression didn't gave away even the slightest how much their deaths must have shaken her, yet I was sure that they had.

I suddenly imagined that if Lennier wouldn't have ended up with me, he would have died in this way too. Had these people too been so innocent and pure before they had been slaughtered by Warrior Caste?

"We are fairly autarkic, that means food lasted as long as we rationed it and we had enough energy – wind blows always. But the sending transmiters down in the valley had been destroyed, which means that we had only internet anymore if the net satellite stood directly above us. And as they shot it down too nothing at all. No internet first sounds not that bad, after all you can do without funny animal videos, fan-forums and illegally uploaded moves. But that meant that one couldn't find out how the war was going. We sent people down, but had to find out that one of the other religious clans had mined the valley completely. Tja, it's the greatest honor to sacrifice oneself for ones people.", her voice dripped with cynicsm, "Had Warrior Caste took over Avudor and Vinra'Shun? Had religious caste even probably lost? Believe me, this missing certainty was terrible."

I tried to not let the pain in my soul and the burning in my eyes show: "That… I am so sorry…"

Bek could have said that I would have actually started the war myself and that I shouldn't had broken the Grey Concil, if the consequences shook me so much. But she didn't do it. She plainly said with deep, rasping voice: "Now you know what we have to process."

A/N: I love Bek, little sly piece of shit, and I love the rhetorical duels she fights with Delenn, how she just gives a damn about Delenns power. Already her materialistic appearance in contrast with her rather small built is an interesting sight, and I wish I would have ever succeeded at drawing her.


	5. Chapter 5

**Who are you?**

Lennier returned in the early afternoon. I sat before the chamber in which the Dreaming took place, and worked trough proposals about the exact obligations of the planet Brakir, just to keep myself busy. The door of the room opened sizzling and mist swirled around me and Bek, who stood a few meters distant, to learn about the outcome of the Dreaming. Lennier and his aunt appeared out of the mist.

His face decorated the same not-expression I had seen so often when he had visited me in the last year on Babylon 5 and I did something that awoke hope in him and yet made clear that I would never love him. He starred first at Bek and then at me and we seemed to be completely not matter for him.

"What did you see?", Bek asked before I could do something myself.

The way how he hesitated let me realize that he would have never told me what the dreaming had showed him would Bek not have asked, just like he had hidden his love from me for years. Just like I hid me plans and motivations myself, until it was absolutely not possible anymore to keep them secret. Shocking how much we resembled each other truly.

"That I sacrificed everything for a higher goal… for Delenn. Even my own identity. I don't know who I am anymore…", his face stayed motionless, yet something in his voice sounded shrill and panicked and his look was so frozen and strangely shifted that he must have been absolutely disturbed.

Who are you? And suddenly I felt again the stabbing pain in my wrists, saw the sparks dance around my body, heard this question, this single question and knew that I couldn't answer it, because I was nothing anymore, only a symbol, a half-human half-minbari body, something that had been emerged through influence and interacting with my surroundings, I was nothing, I didn't belong anywhere, I was lost. The panic threatened to suffocate me and I wanted away despite I knew that it would be no use, and anyway my heart raced to fastly and my head was too whirred with thoughts to be able to move in any way. I tried to breath in deeply, looked trough sense perceptions just like a soul healer had described me once, and slowly the panic vanished and left only the deep fear it had carried with itself.

I hadn't had something like this for a long time, yet it was actually logical that it would came back after I had come together with Lennier, after all he knew all the contradictions inside me.

"I changed so much to be able to serve you better. And maybe because of the war, because I believe something like this changes people, but…"

"You only had to fight in the war because of me."

"There is no greater honor than to serve the own people, and with that you, and if I have to change for that, it is honorable too.", yet one heard that this truth unsettled him nevertheless. And at the same time he said that with such detest for himself that I was hurt.

"You helped me so much, and I don't know how I could have got trough all this without you, yet I… I never wanted that you sacrifice yourself for me.", and yet I allowed it. Watched how it destroyed him mentally and even physically, only because I needed his help so much. ,,That shall not mean that I do not value what you did for me. But you mean far to much to me to destroy you like this. You yourself, not your mere service."

He looked at me unbelieving, and smiled all faintly, and as he blinked, tears of emotion flew down his face. Had he still not believed he would mean something to me? But how could he have after all this time in which I had just used him.

"It showed me my former hobbies – history, mathematics, foreign languages, to repair things myself.", he pronounced these interests full of detest, as if they would be completely silly.

"There is nothing silly about it. And I found the things you told so excited truly interesting. You are quite cute if you do that, you know?"

He looked down and smiled in a way as if he would believe I would be lying but would not object out of politeness.

"You are the most minbari person I know. So sacrificial. You could talk for hours about the Julann-dynasty or the Cold War of Earth or the Dilgar, and you smiled the whole time during it and your eyes shone. You are so smart.", and in his embarrassed grin I saw that he didn't held himself for that too, ,,And despite your shyness – I know you detest it because from your point of view it makes you weak, lesser useful for our people – you are incredibly courageous and brave. You…", suddenly it became hard to continue talking, ,,I never met anybody who is as loyal. You were always there for me and stood by me. Nobody… nobody knows me so deeply. Not anymore.", I though at Mayan and how she screamed at me full of hate and disturbed because I had brought the war over Minbar.

The next words I hardly managed to speak. They seemed to get stuck in my troat, as if they would be to large for my mouth. My chest laced up with fear. It hurt to speak aloud how much he meant to me. And now I was the one who lowered her gaze and didn't managed to rose it up. "You are my best friend. My… my fundament. You mean so much to me, Lennier."

I didn't knew how his expression was because I was still looking down, yet his hand touched mine hesitantly.

,,Later, as I suspected that you love me, I always wanted that you would find your own life. And as you started at the Anla'Shok then I hoped you would have found your own future there. But being a soldier fitted so less to you, who could back then talk for hours about history or historical novels, or watched movies in dozen languages in original and found probability calculation fascinating. Even if you fullfiled your role there incredibly good." _To be more how you believed I would have wanted you. To become a warrior like John_.

" I… don't know anymore if that is truly my future. I have to go on a search on who I truly am. But", he breathed in deeply, "I am not destined for something higher like you. I am not worthy of you."

,,How do people like I, who are been said to be destined for something greater, their goals if not trough help of others? And didn't you swear to never leave my side? How couldn't it not be your fate then?"

"But the prophecy…"

I thought at Sinclair, and how this prophecy should in truth only be a warning and a help for me. I thought at how I didn't knew anymore who I was since I wasn't bearer of a greater destiny decided by higher powers. Then I had believed so much in this goals, who was I still, if all those destinies ceased to exist.

"Fate doesn't exists anymore, Lennier, since the first ones are away.", I was surprised myself how disturbed I sounded, ,,Except for what we build ourself."

"I serve you, Delenn, with heart, body and soul. This is and was my fate, no matter what happens, and I will never be able for more."

I should have said how terrible I had behaved. I should have never let him sacrifice himself like this for me. And I would have owed it our friendship to truly expose with him as I noticed that he loved me. I shouldn't have abandoned him like this. How ironic, it always had disgusted me if one of my friends had, as soon as she had a new mate, cared not even the slightest bit for her friends anymore, no matter how much longer she knew them or how much deeper their connection was. The only one they still were interested in was their lover. And then I had behaved just like that myself. I felt disgust about myself.

"Lennier, I don't want you as my underling. I want you as my partner."

His smile was only a mask and he avoided my gaze.

"I can never be that. You… you know me, when you need someone who isn't submissive and insecure and shy, I can't fulfill you those wishes. Only… someone else."

The lostness in his face showed clearly at whom he thought.

I breath in painfilledly. ,,I choose you. You yourself, with all your qualities, likings and weaknesses. There is nothing bad at who or what you are. But you should never believe that you are worth lesser than I."

I wanted to embrace him, yet I knew how difficult bodily contact could be for him and was not sure if this wouldn't just have disturbed him even more.

He breathed in deeply and looked thoughtful, as if he would tried to believe.

"How could I ever be worth as much as you, like our biggest leader, high priestess, tactician, holy woman since thousand years. How could I ever be worthy of you. I… I know steady as rock that I am not good enough for you, will never be able to become good enough for you."

"Lennier…", I tried to stifle him.

"I know you don't feel this way, and I shouldn't feel like this. But it feels like this."

I heard him gulp, his fingers fiddled nervously around.

"I still feel so presumtious. I am disgusted about my longing and love for you, although I know now that I am not just merely a obtrusive boy who doesn't manages, despite clear signs, to let go of his damn thoughts from the unwanted recivent of his wanting. Yet it seems just as wrong to me."

"You were never obtrusive or didn't accepted my no. Of course it isn't always possible to give up ones love. That is specifically what makes this feeling so threatening and deep."

"Nevertheless it wasn't right. You didn't wanted me, I should have stopped."

Yet how should he have known for sure that back then I didn't requited it from the way I behaved?

"You are a better and nobler person than you believe."

He smiled again in his polite but not believing way.

"Before you kissed me for the first time I thought all the pain and the fear and shame would vanish as soon as you would ever begin a relationship with me. How naïve I was."

I didn't knew what I should reply and so I only smiled sadly.

"We will manage this together.", I smiled towards him and hesitantly stretched out my hand. Just as hesitantly he took it.

I did not know for how long we stood there like this, yet finally he breathed in deeply and asked Bek: "Has the outcome of the dreaming any effect on the hearing about us?"

Bek, who had probably talked with Lenniers aunt about the events of the Dreaming, turned: "No. You truly love her. Against that it showed nothing. Only how you dealt with that. And with Delenns status as Satai and leader. It showed a bunch of reasons why your relationship would be problematic, yet you two have to work out that between each other.", at the last words she almost sounded pitiful.

Half a dozen monks and nuns together with several older woman I, in face of their authoritative manners, held for clan elders slowly found together at the room.

I prayed that whatever Bek declared was formulated in such a way that Lennier wouldn't believe to spoil the honor of his clans would he continue our relationship, and tried to compose tactics.

Bek threw her coat over the chair downright inappropriately casual, bowed once towards the stone prism on the left side of the room, then she stood before the clan elders. Her voice sounded just as grumpy, annoyed and disinterested as always, yet in the corner of her mouth twitched for a moment true regret: "As sorry as I am for that – it would've meant a lot lesser work for me: The clan can't tolerate this relationship. In face of the members it damages their honor."

I expected that Lennier would be to shocked to do anything, and that he would be ashamed for himself. Instead he straightened and said determinedly: "Especially this decision damages our honor."

Through the shock of the judgement I felt pride for him. That was it. Of course I had not expected that the Third Fane of Chu'Domo would permit our relationship just like this. Yet a foolish part of me had hoped I could force them to acknowledge it if though highly reluctantly, or at least that it wouldn't bring dishonor over the clan to stay up against its judgment. But now… Lennier would always chose the benevolence of his people. I had no option than to convince him that he wouldn't harm them, if I wouldn't want to lose him. That, or still change Beks mind.

"What is honorable about defying an just leader who lead us trough all these hardships? She leads the Religious Caste, and only trough her initiative and her sacrifice she delivered all of us from the civil war. She lead us in a new age. Without her we only would have tried to uphold the past trough our isolation again and again. Do you believe it is honorable to work against her after all of this?"

"You claim your clan would serve the Minbari. Yet with the decision to forbid this you do exactly the opposite. Yes, our wardens, the Vorlons, moved on and now we have to find our own way. Yes, we can never manage to find back into the old isolation, and our society will have to change to persist in this time. Yet we have to undergo this change cohensively. If now single clans work against each other, it will solely proceed even more difficult."

"Because they will obey you instantly, if I just vote for you.", Beks voice oozed with sarcasm, "I personally do believe it is already now to much. You as ambassador should know the best how to fast changes affect a people. Even more changes, and our society is ripped apart anew. Do you really want that?"

"No war will erupt just because I chose an Minbari mate. And why", I used her own believes against her, ,,should that affect somebody so much, when I am already an 'pervert abnormity' anyway? What a difference does it still make then?"

"Do you want to chance it, Delenn?"

"Why do you still bother yourself with my actions anyway?", Lennie contributed to our disput, "In the last two and a half cycles my clan contacted me not once. You have treated me like an outcast, because of my decision to serve Delenn and her plans. Why not anymore now?"

An realization flashed up in Beks face, and even before Lennier I understood that he had commited an huge mistake. Then he realized, too, and his gaze flinched to me, horrified.

"You have two alternatives, if you don't want to bring dishonor over your whole clan.", Bek said straightforwardly, "Either you give up your love, or you will be cast out of the clan officially."

"You can still stop that. You can still beware your clan from divide our society and make a backward decision.", I appalled at her an last time.

Bek ignored me. "I can give you time for your decision."

"I…", said Lennier, rather to say anything at all than because he had met an decision. His eyes were as dull like as he had left the service as my attaché because he couldn't bear it anymore. ,,After this judgement I will leave the clan. If… if you can guarantee me that I will only harm my own honor but not that of my clan." _Delenn needs me_, were his unspoken words.

No. Not another sacrifice he brought for me. He did not deserve this. Yet I could only stand there while bright pain shot trough my heart.

"Then I will consult with the clan elders to arrange everything. You are dismissed.", Bek grumbled.

While the monks and nuns removed themselves with triumphant expressions, I stayed. Only as except for us, Bek and the elders nobody was still in the room anymore, I went forward to them. The elders appeared content and seemed to feel very safe. If everything went well, they would react shocked about how untrue this safety turned out to be. Some talked with each other, and one looked satisfied to Bek. Yet her face was still blank. Observant. I formed the words in my head, ready to lead my last move.

Bek discussed with a woman diagonally beside her. I would have tried to pit the elders against her – with her unconventional way she couldn't be especially popular among them – hadn't I known that she was already relatively progressive for her clan.

"The relationship of an half-alien freak would stain your clan.", I stated with a voice oozing with disdain, "But aren't the actions by some of yours not just as dishonorable? For example the conspiracy against the station captain back then, in which who was then clan leadership along with some members let it look as if he had killed an Minbari without provocation? Such an behavior is a shame and as soon as our people will learn about that every clan will know how dishonorable and hypocritical the Third Fane of Chu'Domo is."

One clan elder leaped to her feet and wanted to rush up to me, and only her neighbor could hold her back. Fright, hate and fear were to see on the faces of the others.

"How can this freak dare it!", voices were raised, fists were clenched.

Yet in the midst of the upset, rearing up elders Bek sat completely still, her face unmoved.

"Don't you dare trying to blackmail me on the territory of my own clan.", she still sounded completely calm. Far to calm for my taste.

And in the same moment I felt an hand on my lower arm, and stared into Lenniers face.

"I won't let this happen, Delenn.", I would never forget the look in his eyes.

Terror, pain, disbelieve – shouldn't he have known to what means I could go back? He should have been aware of it – but the worst of all, betrayal. How could I have been so deluded? As much as he loved me, he would have never done anything that could have harmed his clan or all Minbari. And had I really performed the blackmailing, he would have never wanted to have anything to do with me ever again. He would have suffered, yet he would never put his own wellbeing or even my over that of all.

I knew I could never undo this, and I prayed, he could forgive me. Everything what we had gone trough together, the wars, our friendship, the fragile start of… yes, I had to admit to myself, it was love – had I just destroyed all of that with my own arrogance?

"The ritual of leaving takes place tomorrow. I expect you in the small mass.", said Bek, as if nothing had happened.

For a moment a part of me hoped, he would said straightforwardly that he would have changed his mind, he would do anything, but he kept quiet. A part of me wanted to beg him to do it, yet I was unable to bring myself to.

"Did it went badly?", Lenniers aunt had waited in front of the door.

He only nodded shortly.

"I bring you over to me. You shouldn't be alone in this time."

Over the whole way Lennier kept quite.

We left the actual monastery area and came to an hillside that was ornamented with small, simple buildings out of stone, ideal, to devote oneself secluded prayer and religion.

Lennier started instantly to prepare our food. I touched his arm comforting.

"Can you", he sounded tormented, "please stop that?"

And so I sat to his aunt and waited. The soup tasted exquisitely, but the place was not especially big and for three people definitely to small. One had no opportunity to withdraw somewhere. I knew Lennier wanted to be alone, yet I couldn't avoid him, just as less as he me. And so we sat there quietly. Prayed, and continued to keep quiet after that. I felt as if his aunt wanted to discuss something with him, but my presence hindered them at that. And so I some when couldn't endure it any longer and walked back to my monastery room, where I still stored my things, and worked at bills and correspondence.

Actually, I had expected Lennier would sleep over at his aunts, yet in reality he appeared late in the evening at the quarter and slipped wordlessly to me into the bed.

"Do you want to talk?"

"No.", it sounded still more hesitantly than normally, as if speaking would pose him diffeculties.

He allowed that I laid my arms around him, and it felt comforting. But he didn't moved a bit, but rather laid there quiet and apathetic.

A/N: I find the glimpses into each others soul, but also the hurt and betrayal between Delenn and Lennier in this chapter very interesting, and touching, and for this reason this is perhaps my favorite chapter of this


	6. Chapter 6

**So Let The Flames Begin**

Some when in the night I woke from faint rustling and an soft light. I realized instantly that nobody was lying beside me anymore.

"Lennier?"

I ordered the computer to turn on light. Thanks Valeria, he only cowered on the writing desk chair and read. His eyes looked tearstained.

"I am sorry, I didn't wanted to wake you.", he looked so young and fragile.

I walked towards him and hugged him. He returned it very, very deeply, as if he wanted to hold onto me. I felt every detail of his body, as if I had to save this memory forever. "That's not that bad."

"Everything in my life I did to serve our people.", he said dully after a long break, "But how can I still do that, when my own clan has expelled me? How can I serve the Minbari if one has expelled me?"

"You still belong to our people, and you are still as sacrificing and honorable as before. And now, as you serve not only just your clan, but in first place all of us, you can maybe do that even better than before.", I tried to comfort him, despite I know, that this couldn't ease his pain too. He pulled me tighter to him and hid his face in my shoulder.

"I have spent the first twentyfour years of my life solely here.", he mumbled toneless.

"I am so sorry, Lennier. I didn't wanted to do all of this to you.", and I didn't knew if I talked about his banishment, my attempt to blackmail his clan or all the times in which I had simply exploited his help because I needed it so desperately, without being able to even just treat his friendship with the respect it deserved.

And I hold him as he cried. It hurt so much to see him suffer, yet it also brought a new kind of closeness.

Only at daybreak we were finally weary enough to be finally able to sleep.

I had waited for hours in front of the room and prayed, as finally Lennier left the mass and we made it on our way to my shuttle. On the way the glances of the monks and nuns followed us, yet I didn't care. Only cold fury built steadily in me.

Then, as we crossed an broad corridor that pillars and wall ornaments adorned, a young woman and an just as young man approached us. Already their slightly ducked, lithe posture showed their hostility. The woman fixated me with her gaze. She was clearly taller and more muscular than I. The boy reminded me with his petite frame, the narrow, soft face and the even in skulking almost humble posture unpleasantly at Lennier.

They wouldn't attack us, I said to myself, disdainful gazes and humiliating sayings were one thing, but the Third Fane of Chu'Domo wouldn't be so dishonorable to in truth physically attack us.

They were closer now, and the paces of the woman became even more purposeful.

"Traitor!", she pressed out as if she had to make fast work of it or else would lose courage. And then she kicked. I had halfly braced myself. Not enough to block. Pain in my flank, I was thrown against Lennier. We toppled against one of the pillars.

He screamed out pained, a high, shrill screech. Sharp pain, at every breath trough my torso. At least I could breath.

The woman already took a swing for the next kick, the boy close beside her.

Where was something here that I could use as Denn'Bok-surrogate? I was no especially good close combatist without weapon. If one of them was as good as Lennier…

Damn. Damn damn. I grabbed his crutch. Managed just barely to bring it between me and the kick for my head.

I stumbled backwards, dodged an karate chop, went in small, fast footsteps forward, everyone accompanied with an blow. Compel them out of the corner. The crook was badly balanced, the handle bothered.

The woman dodged, sprang forward immediately and stroke or kicked. Every time when she did nothing, the boy attacked, I had no time to look for targets or weaknesses in their defense.

The woman could dodge my blow from above only in the last moment. I pursued. But she blocked without even contorting her face with her lower arm, and used the small distance between us immediately to rim her foot in direction of my stomach. Only in the last moment I could bring my improvised fighting pike between. The force let me stumble backwards. Strands fell before my eyes, I wished I had braided my hair back.

Already her fist shot towards my face. I blocked, the staff between both hands, and her hand smacked against the metal. She contorted her face in pain, yet made no sound.

Damn deluded fanaticans. I had to show them that they couldn't simply do this with me!

I noticed vaguely how Lennier tried to pull himself up on the wall, but was pushed back by the boy, yet I was to preoccupied with his fighting comrade to really perceive it.

The boy hasted towards me. His arms were to low. I slogged him the end of the crook into the face. He stumbled backwards, whimpered and held a hand in his face. I felt no pity at all, only grim delight.

Then a dull bang, a yelp, and he sunk permanently against the wall.

He had completely forgotten Lennier, and had come to close to him, what he promptly had quitted with an kick of his healthy leg against his shin.

Distracted by Lenniers intervention into the fight I could hardly block the next attack of the woman. Yet already she kicked after my leg. I didn't managed to change sides of my staff in time.

Sharp pain quivered trough my knee and then every single muscle and tendon in my lower leg and foot. Only with pure force of will I managed that my leg did not simply collapsed under me. But I wouldn't let these racists have this satisfaction. They had humiliated me already enough. I wouldn't let them destroy everything I had built up so painstacking.

We stared at each other for a moment. He skin at her knuckles was bursted and bleed, and her right hand shook a little bit, but she stood unblinking in fighting stance before me.

I walked towards her as good as it was possible with my injured leg. Right attack. Other side forward, left. Don't ever give up. Don't pay attention to the pain. She bashed after me, I almost fell because trough my injuries I had no secure stance anymore, yet I could push her hand away from with a swipe of the staffs end. Her left flank was unprotected. Only a fast move down, building up momentum, then my improvised fighting staff smacked into her ribs. I hit her again as she doubled up.

She stumbled back, and was hardly able to stand upright, the one hand she held before her stomach as if she could ease the pain like this, the other still quivered in attack stance in my direction.

I wanted to respond to her with an variance of "If you value your life, be somewhere else", but in face of the truth that the clan saw me as a monster and traitor already now that seemed less advisable to me.

"I did not want to hurt any of you. But when you don't retreat immediately I can't gurantee that not maybe a few blows hit you nevertheless. Disapear!"

Finally the woman skulked back backwards, half she carried, half pulled the boy.

I stayed breathing hard and completely exhausted. My ribs throbbed. Sharp pain in my knee, and everything underneath it I couldn't feel at all. I still held the crook like a weapon in front of me. A bit abashed I gave it back to Lennier.

"Are you hurt, Delenn?"

I palpated my flank. Everything felt normal, even if it hurt awfully to touch the skin. "No rib broken. But that will add up to a hematoma of the size of my hand. And I can't feel everything under my right knee anymore, but I can still move it. Is everything okay with you?"

I held out my hand to him and pulled him up.

"Yes.", he said. I knew him long enough to see from the pain-contorted twitch of his lips that this wasn't the case.

I limped off.

"This is direction of the mass."

"Certainly. It has started since already some minutes, hasn't it?", I growled, "I won't tolerate all of this any longer."

"Delenn", he pleaded, "please don't do anything that will harm my clan."

"Oh, it wont harm it. Only their conscience and their disgusting presumption."

Hidden at the back end of the hall we waited until the current prayer was spoken to the end.

"Ensure that this is recorded and ends up in the internet, no matter as if as transcript or video. That is something that concerns all Minbari, not just your clan.", I ordered Lennier. He nodded, still a bit confused, and raised loyally the old, battered camera of his aunt.

Between the rows of praying people I walked towards the altar. If need be I would keep them at bay with arms and feet, like back then, as I had spoken to the masses after the allegend Kamikaze attack on Za'Ha'Dum, and simply continue speaking until I was finished.

I paced up the steps to the triangled altar and stood in front of it. The priest, who had just wanted to speak the next prayer, stared out of concept at me and opened his mouth to scorn me, but as I stared at him resolutely he gulped and crept away backwards.

An acolyte stumbled towards me and mumbled: "You are not allowed to be up there!"

"I am Delenn, uniter of the worlds, renominater of the Grey Council, I am surly powerful enough to decide myself where I am allowed to be and where not, and I have to deliver a message. But I admire your bravery, acolyte."

Her jaw muscles twitched, she breathed in deeply once and then scurried away.

"What is it that makes us Minbari?", I called into the crowd. Thoughtful and curious looks.

"From where does an alien freak like you know that?", only one person hollered.

My heart squashed together, yet I let nothing show and continued to speak: "Especially an 'alien freak' like me inevitably has to understand this topic! Then how often do I surly have doubted to be a Minbari myself, and so have recognized all the more what it means to be Minbari? You believe my half-human body and the truth that I work together with people of other species would make me to a perversity, an traitor. You call me a monster."

"You are a monster!"

"But do you really believe our genetic features only would make our people? That honorable behavior and our culture mean nothing? No, what matters is community."

I thought at Lennier, and his sacrifices: "We don't act for ourself, but for our people. That is what makes us unique among all civilizations. That is our greatest strength. We, all Minbari, create an community that works together for a common goal."

Approving gazes. Some also seemed stunned, and a man at the front row looked scornful, as if he found it silly to hear that from a hybrid of all people. Hopefully they took the rest of my speech just as kindly.

"Does that mean we have to expel everybody different from this community?", I breathed in deeply, tried not to think about that the crowd in truth thought that about me. And I raised my voice, as if to drown out the contradictions I expected now already in advice. "I say no, then that means to confuse community with exclusion and elitisity. Especially the best communities stand out due including differences and to use them and still unify all to an whole. This is what challenge of our future will be.

Don't just only our culture and our traditions make us to Minbari? You believe, we would give up our own culture and only adopt those of the aliens, if we opened for persons from other peoples. It is an terrifying, painful process, but without it we can't exist as society. Shouldn't we not think about how we can bring our culture with all its good with us in our new future then, and how we could maybe even let other species participate in it?"

My heart raced with passion and I felt how not only this skeptical crowd but also all the power of my vision surrounded me, and everything I had reached until now.

"We all built our future together. Yet when parts of our society put themselves against it they only forfeit to contribute to it. That should not mean that there are no different opinions allowed. Dialogues and the solutions growing out from it especially will play an important role in this process. But don't put yourselves against the future, then wouldn't this be also against the community that makes us who we are so much? You can't stop the change anymore. Don't you want to contribute to it then?

All of this will not be an easy task, but I am sure we will manage it. Together."

The audience was silent and stared. And then, oh so slowly, mumbling raised. Discussions. As it should be.

And so I paced back to Lennier, and together, my hand around his upper arm, we left the mess.


End file.
